


Day 45 - Murder Murder Polis

by Amemait



Category: Taggart - Fandom
Genre: GFY, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 07:36:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Real Nursery Rhyme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 45 - Murder Murder Polis

**Author's Note:**

> This is a real nursery rhyme from Scotland, which I first heard on an early episode of Taggart
> 
> There is at the least a second verse, which I have only come across in a biography of Alf Wight (whom we would normally call 'Janes Herriot', the Yorkshire Vet), in a section describing his childhood. I neglected to copy it down, and the book is still at my Grandmother's house. If somebody would be able to provide me with any further verses (including that second verse), I would be quite grateful.

_Murder, murder polis,_  
 _Three stairs up._  
  
The trouble with nursery rhymes, Jim Taggart felt, was that they could give people ideas. Two of the kids on his street had been called Jack and Jill, for example. When they'd grown up, they'd gotten married. And then she'd pushed him off a cliff. He'd shattered his head on the rocks below and died immediately, and just as they'd caught up to her, she'd turned and thrown herself down a bunch of stairs. Snapped her neck as she tumbled down, and was taken off life-support three days later.

And now there was this.  
  
 _The wummin oan the middle stair,_  
 _Hit me wi' a cup._  
  
He'd been walking home, and the kid crashed out of the window and landed in front of him. Only the third storey, but then this was only a child, 12 at the most. His head was bleeding, and-

  
Dear god in heaven, was his-

The child's left eye had been ripped out.

He looked up, and the young woman who'd been peering out from over the broken glass drew her head back quickly.

"Jardin!"

His partner broke down the door with two swift shoves, and started running up the stairs to try to catch her.

Jim knelt beside the kid, feeling desperately for a pulse.

"Call an ambulance!" he yelled franticly at the man who poked his head out the door to figure out what the commotion was.

Maybe, just maybe, if he was lucky this wouldn't turn out to be a murder.  
  
 _Ma heid's aw broken,_  
 _Ma eye's aw cut,_  
 _Murder, murder polis,_  
 _Three stairs up._


End file.
